Ordinary diners who take part in our annual survey each spring review restaurants and leave their feedback, but we also ask them to score restaurants from 1-5 on food, service and ambience. Harden’s then uses an average of these scores and measures them against other establishments in the same price bracket to arrive at the ratings published in the guide and online.

Snippets from some of your feedback may end up in the overall Harden’s review, noticeably they appear in “double quotation marks”. The rest of our pithy, bite-sized restaurant summaries are compiled by analysing the survey data and extracting recurring themes, looking at whether or not a venue was nominated in any of our categories – like ‘favourite’ or ‘most overpriced’ – and, of course, looking at the ratings for food, service and ambience.

The Harden’s ratings indicate that a restaurant is:

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All reviews are compiled from survey comments and ratings, without any regard for our own personal opinions, except in cases where restaurants are too new to have been included in the survey. If you want the editors’ view on new restaurants in London you can find them in our Editors’ Review section.

News

Corrigan junior steps up

Restaurateur Richard Corrigan has introduced a dynastic element to his business with the elevation of his son Richie to the post of general manager at Corrigan’s Mayfair.

He has also appointed former Jason Atherton deputy Ross Bryans as chef patron to lead Corrigan’s Mayfair into a new era. Bryans trained with Clare Smyth at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and was head chef at Pollen Street Social before opening the Clocktower in New York for Atherton.

Meanwhile, a new late-night watering-hole, Dickie’s Bar, will open next month at Carrigan’s Mayfair in collaboration with New York mixologist Gregory Buda of Manhattan’s Dead Rabbit, said to the the world’s best bar. It will take a “culinary approach” to cocktail creation, with ingredients arriving fresh every day from Virginia Park Lodge, Corrigan’s bio-horticulture garden in his native Ireland.

Corrigan reinvigorated Bentley’s, the 100-year-old oyster bar near Piccadilly Circus, after taking it over in 2005, and opened Corrigan’s Mayfair three years later. The 2017 Harden’s Survey describes the Mayfair venue as a “clubby, opulent place with fine cuisine”.

Richie Corrigan trained at Les Roches hotel management school in Switzerland and has worked his way through Bentley’s and Corrigan’s. Corrigan senior could be describing himself when he says of his son: “Richie has it in his bones – when I watch him on the floor I am always reminded that some people have a natural way with this job. This has been clear since he was just a boy – I can’t wait to see him in action and see where he takes us.”